The Juliana Theory rips the stage.Review by Holiday Girod
On the night of the release of their major label debut album, Love, The Juliana Theory, along with co-headliners Something Corporate, blasted into the Metro and turned this small venue, packed to the gills with kids hardly old enough to cough up a driver's permit for I.D., into one of the most frenzied shows in this city's recent history.
Photos by Tony Bonyata
The Pennsylvania-based quintet The Juliana Theory had just finished an emotionally charged acoustic in-store performance at Tower Records earlier that day, but the tone of their performance that evening was not only decidedly more electric, but more explosive as well.
While the focal point of the band, understandably, fell on the lean and lanky singer / guitarist Brett Deter's cocksure stance and emotive, passion-drenched vocals, it was the triple whammy from guitarists Joshua Fielder, Joshua Kosker and Detar, not to mention the axis-shifting rhythms from drummer Josh Walters and bassist Chad Alan, that proved that this wasn't merely a backing band for one of rock's latest pretty faces.
The band treated their audience to a handful of favorites from their first two full-length indie releases Emotion Is Dead and Understand This Is Not A Dream, including "Duane Joseph," "Is Patience Still Waiting?" and the passion play finale of "Constellation." With a transfixed crowd, they also capitalized on their new material, as they added some onstage elbow grease to the power ballad "Into The Dark," and showcased a welcome hard edge on the weighty "Trance," helping to entice the already throbbing crowd into a full-fledged heels-over-head mosh pit.
Opening for The Juliana Theory was the young, aggressive talents of Something Corporate, an Orange County, California-based band who are swapping headline spots with T.J.T. every other night throughout this tour.
On record, it may seem that the momentum of their songs may smack of lesser bands, such as Blink182, but after witnessing their wonderfully chaotic performance it should be noted that they have nothing in common with this type of hack punk chicanery.
Sure many of their songs are slathered in emo-rock sentiments, but instead of following in the clunky nu-punk footsteps of their SoCal brethren, lead singer Andrew McMahon added a fresh element as he feverishly spat out his lyrics while pounding the daylights out of his tattered upright piano. And from the looks and sounds of it, with his unruly mop of hair flailing in front of his face and eventually jumping atop his piano and setting it aflame, not only did his Saturday afternoon piano lessons pay off in a big way, but those late night cable viewings of Jerry Lee Lewis tearing it up in the 1958 film High School Confidential didn't hurt much either.
Despite the fact that Something Corporate may have wooed the crowd's affection a bit more than the headliners that night, this was still, nonetheless, a loving triangle between two young, promising bands and their even younger, adoring audience.
Something Corporate burns the house down.
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